Northern Ireland 5-0 Bulgaria: Michael O’Neill’s new NI take huge step towards future

The manager had started five players aged 21 or younger against Belarus and, by bringing Brodie Spencer into his starting line-up in place of Jamal Lewis, it was six against Bulgaria.

The most encouraging aspect of the noteworthy win for Northern Ireland was how central that sextet were to everything good about the hosts’ performance.

Isaac Price (21) stole the headlines by becoming the first Northern Ireland player to hit an international hat-trick since David Healy in 2007. Certainly if the Standard Liege midfielder, who had two previous international strikes in 15 caps, can regularly add goals to his game, it would provide an answer to one of the side’s most enduring question marks.

Shea Charles, who at 20-years-old already has 21 caps, was the dominant force in the centre of the park alongside the restored Ali McCann, with his energy in the press proving just as important as his calm presence on the ball.

The Sheffield Wednesday man’s younger brother Pierce had few saves to make in his second cap, but his eye-catching distribution, most notably before Dion Charles’ (no relation) disallowed goal, means it would be no surprise if he was to retain the number one jersey for the games next month even if first-choice keeper Bailey Peacock-Farrell is fit in November.

Spencer (20) was again deployed out of position as a left wing-back and not only managed to negate the impact of Kiril Despodov, who had so been influential in the last meeting, but also team up with 19-year-old Callum Marshall to give Viktor Popov a torrid time.

Such were the performances of those around him, there was no sense of waiting for Bradley, again captaining the side at 21-years-old, to exert undue influence over the game.